FEVER DREAMS

How the Intellectual Dark Web Spawned ‘Groomer’ Panic

Ron DeSantis’ talking points trace back to a group of anti-woke activists who claim to be disaffected liberals but who are really pandering to the MAGA right.

“Groomer” panic is sweeping the nation as right-wing types turn against LGBTQ rights, and the talking points—as with the backlash against Critical Race Theory (CRT) in schools—can directly be traced back to a group of anti-woke activists on the “intellectual dark web.”

As The Daily Beast’s senior opinion editor Anthony Fisher notes in the latest episode of Fever Dreams, this group of “self-identified disaffected liberals” coalesced against the idea of hyper-political correctness as early as 2016 or 2017, and were made famous in a profile by former New York Times editor and writer Bari Weiss. Among the biggest stars are Joe Rogan, controversial Canadian professor Jordan Peterson, YouTuber Dave Rubin, Peter Thiel’s righthand man Eric Weinstein, and Ben Shapiro, the only one in the group who cops to being a true conservative.

“These people claim to be lifelong Democrats, some of them say that they were Bernie Sanders supporters and they’ve not had a nice thing to say about a single Democratic politician or liberal commentator or liberal idea in the last six years… I think they’re more defined by what they’re against rather than what they’re for,” Fisher says, adding, “a lot of these people are anti-left, all the things they see on the left are things that are ‘threatening Western civilization,’ which is why they latch onto people like Tulsi Gabbard, somebody who’s nominally a Democrat… but for the most part seems to be playing toward the MAGA right audience.”

As Fever Dreams co-host Will Sommer points out, this group’s strand of thinking—which focuses on the excesses of the left, particularly in academia—has now gone from being chatter on Twitter to fueling so many of the national culture wars. Specifically, the right’s language around Critical Race Theory and the lies about Disney “grooming” children can directly be traced back to dark webbers Christopher Rufo (whom the Times profiled this week) and James Lindsay. They’ve “created this groundswell that is absolutely affecting policy,” Fisher says, pointing out that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ own press secretary is now parroting the leaders of the movement. Meanwhile, some dark webbers are finding their allies on the right are turning against them; Rubin, who is gay, recently came under attack from several conservative outlets and members of his audience for his and his husband’s use of a surrogate to build their family.

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Elsewhere on the podcast, Sommer and co-host Kelly Weill discuss how Elon Musk’s successful bid for Twitter is galvanizing the right, raising the prospect that some of their favorite characters like Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes and Milo Yiannopoulos might get their accounts back. Meanwhile, “it really does seem like [former president Donald Trump’s rival network] TRUTH Social is now going to be dead in the water. Trump doesn’t even post there,” Sommer notes. And lest you think there’s no QAnon angle to the Twitter deal, think again: conspiracy theorists have added up the letters in Elon’s name via “arcane” numerology, and they’re pretty convinced that a “great plan is in motion.”

Finally, the co-hosts discuss how newly released texts show Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene pleading with Mark Meadows to “tell the president to calm people” on Jan. 6 (before deciding the rioters must be antifa); and how two manosphere influencers in Romania have been raided in connection with an human-trafficking and rape investigation. As Weill points out, “it’s just interesting that this keeps happening to the people who make the loudest noise about the supposed trafficking panic.”

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Katie BakerEditor

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